President Barack Obama's controversial pick for a top intelligence post blasted the "Israel lobby" on his way out the door Tuesday, intensifying a debate on the role Israel's allies played in the latest failed Obama appointment.

Charles W. Freeman Jr.'s abrupt withdrawal from his appointment as chairman of the National Intelligence Council came after he drew fire on a number of fronts - including questions about his financial ties to China and Saudi Arabia.

But the most heated opposition came from supporters of Israel - and Freeman's departure shows Obama's reluctance to signal a change to a U.S. policy in the Middle East that centers on standing beside Israel.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Obama jettisoned aides and backed off statements that appeared to imply a change in the Bush Administration's firm support for hawkish Israeli governments.

As president, Obama dispatched Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the Middle East last week with a tough message for the Palestinians, saying it was hard for Israel to make peace with people who are hurling rockets into their country.

And the attacks on Freeman, in the end, hinged primarily on the question of Israel, something the Democratic senators who helped break the back of the nomination Tuesday made clear.

Obama dispatched Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the Middle East last week with a tough message for the Palestinians

LOL Yeah, $900 million--that's some strong medicine!

I wonder if Jewish American voters who supported Obama have had their eyes opened. This administration isn't about "demonizing" people who only, you know, blow people up. They're into punishing them with millions of dollars meant to suffocate them.

What it showed is that there's no place for that kind of hostility to America's closest friend and most loyal ally," said a top official at a major Jewish organization who had worked against the choice.

I think the episode showed a lot more than that and none of it flattering to Obama.

It shows the Obama is naïve and for the most part ignorant about foreign affairs. Beginning in the debates when he declared he would talk to America's enemies without preconditions, he demonstrated a fundamental naïveté about foreign affairs. Since then he has been doublecrossed by the Russians who made him look treacherous in the eyes of our allies who learned that they could not trust Obama on missile defense. He has gratuitously insulted our closest ally with whom we have a world aligning "special relationship." He has empowered the terrorists in Gaza with promises of bribe money. He has been challenged at sea by the Chinese. He has dismayed our Israeli allies and pissed off the second biggest and perhaps the most influential lobbying group in America.

The appointment itself shows that Obama is worse than naïve, he has simply uncritically swallowed the extreme leftist agenda of the Democrat party. No one else conceivably would have appointed this man to such a post. It would take a man who had already appointed Panetta to the CIA. Obama has revealed himself as simply an extreme doctrinaire leftist and this appointment was a reversion to the default position.

The episode reveals much about why Obama won the election and why criticism of the Obama today is nearly as difficult to mount as it was during the campaign.

The article alleges, in effect, that the Israeli lobby waged a campaign off the radar to frustrate the nomination of an extreme leftist. The article is very thin on supporting evidence for this allegation but let's assume that it is true. Here is what the author says:

But Jewish and pro-Israel organizations largely decided not to make the fight against Freeman a public crusade, though they were the first, and fiercest, Freeman opponents and made their views known privately.

"The vast majority of the Jewish community [were] very careful not to make this a Jewish community issue," said a top official at one major pro-Israel organization.

And indeed, some officials said Israel's allies might be winning the Freeman battle at the expense of larger goals.

I believe the campaign was waged sub rosa because it is not yet safe in America to criticize Obama and even less is it safe to criticize Obama to the American Jewish community. The issue for Israel is existential and the American Jewish community has an absolute constitutional and moral right to lobby its government for the support of Israel over the matter of its very survival. I am not a Jew and I have an equal moral right to lobby the government to act in America's foreign interests free of divided loyalties. The same observation about Cuban-Americans could be made and, equally, the same complaints about divided loyalties might be leveled. There is no need for the American Jews to skulk about when they lobby the Obama administration. Yet, according to this author, they have determined to make their opposition felt but not at a public level. This tells me that the Jewish community in America which supported Obama in the election is divided and probably disillusioned over Obama because of this issue but does not wish to say so publicly.

Is the lobby afraid it might break up the constituency among American Jews? Is it afraid opposition to Obama, if outspoken, might affect fundraising? Is it, as the article implies, that other issues might be compromised which are equally important to Jews who are liberals and Democrats?

Any thinking American Jew who supports Israel must have been made extremely uneasy by Obama's practiced anti-Israeli foreign policies. He should be made equally uneasy that his party cannot accommodate open debate. He should be made very uneasy that the Obama cult of personality remains strong enough to intimidate those who would speak out on behalf of Israel.

There is an old joke that if you see two Jews standing on a street corner you are looking at three political parties. Darkwolf, surely the brilliance and independence of these stiffnecked and contentious people who have so often courageously spoken up for righteousness and morality, will once again energize the conscience of the American Jewish community.

Yes, Freeman is showing his true colors by blaming the "Israel lobby" for forcing him to withdraw.

But the fact is we don't really know why he was forced to withdraw.

My guess is that this lefty Ben Smith at Politico is spinning this story to make readers believe that such is the case, perhaps on orders from the O WH. By doing so, he is perpetuating the myth that the Obama folks are pro-Israel, the same myth that they were spreading to the Jewish (and pro-Israel) community during the campaign last year.

Yes, Freeman is showing his true colors by blaming the "Israel lobby" for forcing him to withdraw.

But the fact is we don't really know why he was forced to withdraw.

My guess is that this lefty Ben Smith at Politico is spinning this story to make readers believe that such is the case, perhaps on orders from the O WH. By doing so, he is perpetuating the myth that the Obama folks are pro-Israel, the same myth that they were spreading to the Jewish (and pro-Israel) community during the campaign last year.

It's great that Freeman is out. But it's very frustrating that "pro-Israel liberals" are still beating their chests and claiming that Israel, like Chavez, the Sandinistas, the perverts, and the don't-drill-for-oilers belong to their side of the spectrum. These people are the opposite of Pat Buchanan. He thinks Arabs are the only good Communists while they think Arabs are the only bad Communists. Barring the arrival of Mashiach (may he come speedily) I fully expect the liberal claim to exclusive rights to the pro-Israel position will last beyond my own lifetime. Still you never know.

But you know, it's strange that one man is buddies with both Communist China and Saudi Arabia, two powers supposedly on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. But it seems that as Communist China morphs ever so gradually into a militant, nationalist authoritarian regime that Saudi Arabia morphs into an international radicalizer of the "dispossessed."

I am thinking about Michelle and how they pulled a fast one by appointing her head of Obama Brown Shirts. How long before she is appointed to the cabinet with a paid position. There is enough money there from both private and government. I think she should be immediately removed from this position and stripped of everything. I will bet Hillary is either cheering wildly or having a big hissy fit as she was planning some time ago to have her own brown shirts.

We need to protest this vigorously. Michelle Obama should have absolutely no access to a group like this period.

I actually buy the story that "the Israel lobby" was behind Freeman getting thrown under the bus, in the sense that the pressure came largely from pro-Israel activists and politicians. The difference is that I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

There is nothing nefarious about a pressure group using its influence to change policy. That's what democracy is about.

Here, the "Lobby" succeeded in getting a crackpot kicked out. And not just an anti-Israel crackpot. A guy who criticized the Red Chinese for being too EASY on democracy protestors. Way to go "Lobby!"

I actually buy the story that "the Israel lobby" was behind Freeman getting thrown under the bus, in the sense that the pressure came largely from pro-Israel activists and politicians. The difference is that I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

The anti-Israel lobby lost. The pro-Israel people won. Just another DC power struggle Freeman had no use for Israel and this was rightfully reciprocated

I actually buy the story that "the Israel lobby" was behind Freeman getting thrown under the bus,...There is nothing nefarious about a pressure group using its influence to change policy. That's what democracy is about.

While I agree about the value of pressure groups, even lobbyists, I think this went beyond Israel. It's true one of the initial objections came from Chuck Schumer and Mark Kirk, who I suppose get thrown into the nefarious "lobby", but note the signatures on the letter here, Tom Coburn, Christopher S. Bond, Saxby Chambliss, Richard Burr, Orrin G. Hatch, James E. Risch, Olympia J. Snowe. Hardly the typical "Israel Lobby". The ZOA objected early. I think the pro-Saudi, pro-China issue was far more important than the anti-Israel issue. I understand Pelosi was very vocal because of his China positions. This was a bad guy for a multitude of reasons, something most everyone buy Obama recognized. His reaction in leaving seems to confirm his identity as a Jew obsessive as well.

Well American Jews are still Americans and still human and as political as anyone else. Israel is not their only issue. For Liberal Jews there is abortion and ecology and a whole host of leftist ideas. Their reluctance to openly speak out against Obama may be in part because there are many other issues where Obama and the Jewish left agree. They probably figure they can achieve the small goal without a public break. And I’m sure they also want to preserve their coalition as well and not drive people (donors) away.

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